No new gun bills seen as likely this session

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ANNAPOLIS (AP) -- State lawmakers will likely pass no new gun legislation this year with less than two weeks remaining in the 2004 General Assembly session.

"I think the gun debate died when [Sen. John A. Giannetti Jr.] decided he wasn't going to support any kind of ban," said House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat.

Mr. Giannetti, Anne Arundel and Prince George's Democrat, is considered the swing vote on the Senate's 11-member Judicial Proceedings Committee that is scheduled to decide today whether to impose a ban on assault weapons in Maryland.

With just 11 days left in the 2004 General Assembly session, passage of almost every major piece of legislation introduced this year is being threatened by disagreements among the House, the Senate and the governor.

"We're at loggerheads," Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Calvert and Prince George's Democrat, said yesterday .

Most of the important work of legislative sessions is usually completed in the final week or two of the annual 90-day meeting. But this year, legislative leaders acknowledge there are no solutions in sight to their differences over such key issues as taxes, slot machines, health care and the environment.

Typically at this point in the session, a conference committee of Senate and House fiscal leaders would be negotiating an agreement on the state budget.

But Mr. Miller has not appointed Senate members of the budget conference committee. He is waiting for House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, to schedule a vote on Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s slot machine bill, which the Senate passed more than a month ago. Mr. Busch has not said when the slots vote will take place.

Neither side anticipates major problems over the budget when negotiations begin, but there are disagreements among the House, the Senate and the governor about a separate bill that provides revenue to balance the budget.